Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) recently released its Men’s Professional Cricket Global Employment Report 2017, first of its kind in cricket which primarily focuses on the shifting employment landscape for players globally, as a key cause for, and effect of, change in the game, and also analyses player employment at individual country by country level across major cricketing countries and players’ associations.

The report, covering the 2016-17 period, is based on analysis of statistical data research, including quantitative and qualitative surveying of more than 300 current professional and int'l players that represent 3162 cricketers in total from all nine FICA member countries.

"Shifting Landscape" refers to the current trend of young players increasingly being drawn towards becoming free agents, floating from one T20 league to another, and shunning traditional paths in order to play in international cricket. The report defines traditional path (domestic to int'l for country) as vertical path and the shifting trend (domestic/int'l to hybrid into free agents) as horizontal path.